The Management guru & producer Arindam Chaudhuri is quite upbeat & elated about his new film DO DOONI CHAAR, as it marks the return of yesteryear's superhit jodi, Rishi Kapoor & Neetu Singh on-screen after 30 years. One wonders if that was the reason, which predominantly interested Arindam to take up the project. However, Arindam puts it other way round, 'We first had the story, script & screenplay ready and had numerous discussions. It was the script which demanded a loving couple and that's how Rishi & Neetuji came into the picture.'

Going by what Arindam says, one is eager to know why he considered real life couple Rishi & Neetu and not other successful jodis of Bollywood. 'That's precisely the reason to bring huge novelty with the fact that Rishi & Neetu are coming back after 30 years.' Chaudhuri makes his point here.

Was it easy convincing the couple and get them on board? Chaudhuri at once replies, 'Yes absolutely. They loved the script in the first meet itself and became part of it. However, initially it was only Rishiji who was roped in. Neetuji came on board much later. Rishiji wasn't sure of Neetu. But when we narrated the story to her, she was completely floored and immediately gave her nod for the film. This is the first time Neetuji will be seen playing a middle class woman. We have given her a complete makeover. Neetuji's performance is cutest'

Arindam's past production ventures (MITHYA, THE LAST LEAR, FALTU, etc) have achieved critical acclaim status but none of them enjoyed the required commercial success. However, Arindam defends saying, 'At Planman we believe in working for good scripts and stories. We appreciate quality over quantity. Script & screenplay are stars of the film. Getting a star is not an issue but to have good script is. Commercially we may not have achieved the desired results, but we have mostly made small good films. Big budgeted films or films with huge star cast are commercially viable.'

Further he adds, 'For someone with no film background, I think we've progressed fairly well. At Planman, we have had a bold learning journey of 8 years. I think we have finally found foothold and got access in the industry today. We've seen our film budgets grow from 40 lakhs to 7 crore to 10 crores. We don't stick to formula films. We go by the story of the film.'

Being a management guru Arindam is well acquainted with marketing strategies, yet we have never seen aggressive marketing for his films. Arindam candidly explains, 'We are passionate about cinema, at the same time we are very conservative. We take calculative & slow steps instead of getting carried away with market. You will definitely see us doing extensive marketing but only when we make big budgeted films. Untill big monies are involved or you have big stars there's no point in extensive marketing. For DO DOONI CHAR it was a conscious decision to market in last 15-20 days. And the best thing is there is already a strong buzz in the industry for the film and we are sure it will pick up with good word of mouth.'

Arindam has worked with veterans like Sunny Deol in ROK SAKO TOH ROK LO, Amitabh Bachchan in THE LAST LEAR, Rishi Kapoor in DO DOONI CHAR. Is he looking forward to work with younger lot now? 'Yes definitely I am looking forward to work with the younger talent. But the artist and the landscape of the film has to be relatively bigger,' replied Chaudhuri.

Asking about his future projects, Chaudhuri says he wants to enhance from small to big budget films and enter into big league now, 'The next leap we want to take is from 5-6 crore to 15-20 crore. Also, our film I AM 24, which is due for release from long time, has been sold to NDTV Imagine. Because of the recession period we had to hold back the film. I am also looking forward to direction once again (after ROK SAKO TOH ROK LO).

Arindam is quite hopeful about DO DOONI CHAR and pragmatic about the response towards the film. He says, 'Obviously It's not going to be a DABANGG (laughs). It should definitely make decent money and more than that we are now looking forward for the masses and not just for class appeal. Common man will relate to it well.'